Co3O4, ZnFe2O4, CoFe2O4, ZnCo2O4, and Fe3O4 thin films were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition at high and low temperatures resulting in crystalline single‐phase normal, inverse, as well as disordered spinel oxide thin films with smooth surface morphology. The dielectric function, determined by spectroscopic ellipsometry in a wide spectral range from 0.5 to 8.5 eV, is compared with the magneto‐optical response of the dielectric tensor, investigated by magneto‐optical Kerr effect spectroscopy in the spectral range from 1.7 to 5.5 eV with an applied magnetic field of 1.7 T. Crystal field, inter‐valence, and inter‐sublattice charge transfer transitions, and transitions from O2p to metal cation 3d or 4s bands are identified in both the principal diagonal elements and the magneto‐optically active off‐diagonal elements of the dielectric tensor. Depending on the degree of cation disorder, resulting in local symmetry distortion, the magneto‐optical response is found to be strongest for high crystal quality inverse spinels and for disordered normal spinel structure, contrary to the first principle studies of CoFe2O4 and ZnFe2O4. The results presented provide a basis for deeper understanding of light–matter interaction in this material system that is of vital importance for device‐related phenomena and engineering.
The full dielectric tensor of monoclinic Ga2O3 (β-phase) was determined by generalized spectroscopic ellipsometry in the spectral range from 1.0 eV up to 8.5 eV and temperatures in the range from 10 K up to 300 K. By using the oriented dipole approach, the energies and broadenings of the excitonic transitions are determined as a function of the temperature, and the exciton-phonon coupling properties are deduced.
We report an influence of disorder on structural and magnetic properties of ZnFe2O4 thin films grown at temperatures ranging from 400 °C to 600 °C by pulsed laser deposition in O2 atmosphere on SrTiO3 (100) substrates evidenced by properties of electronic transitions observed in the dielectric function. Inversion of the normal spinel structure was found to be one of the main mechanisms responsible for the increase in the magnetic response for the lowest growth temperature. The enhanced feature in the dielectric function located at ∼3.5 eV, related to the transition involving tetrahedrally coordinated Fe3+ cations, corresponds to the dominating magnetic coupling between the octahedral and tetrahedral lattice sites, responsible for the overall ferrimagnetic behaviour of the film grown at the lowest temperature.
We determined the dielectric function of CuI by means of spectroscopic ellipsometry in the spectral range from 0.6 eV up to 8.3 eV for temperatures from 10 K to 300 K. Features observed in the dielectric function are attributed to electronic transitions in the Brillouin zone. The observed spin-orbit splitting of the top valence band of 630 meV at the Γ-point and 330 meV at the L-point are in good agreement with theoretical band structure calculations. From the temperature evolution of the critical point energies, we deduced the electron-phonon coupling constants as well as the typical phonon energies. The electron-phonon coupling for the lowest transitions at the Γ-point is found to be smaller than for high energy transitions at other symmetry points in the Brillouin zone.
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